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Claims vs. Identity Think of a claim as a piece of identity information (for example, name, email address, age, or membership in the Sales role). The more claims your application receives, the more you know about your user. These are called "claims" rather than "attributes," as is commonly used in describing enterprise directories, because of the delivery method. In this model, your application does not look up user attributes in a directory. Instead, the user delivers claims to your application, and your application examines them. Each claim is made by an issuer, and you trust the claim only as much as you trust the issuer. For example, you trust a claim made by your company's domain controller more than you trust a claim made by the user. MSDN - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee539091.aspx